perky mushroom giveaway

Given it's most probably springtime for real, the blog-of-note-thing, I can't be the only one who needs a proverbial perk-me-up injection, etc etc and so forth, I'm thinking it would be nice to have another little giveaway here in blog. This time there will be three perky magic mushrooms (the kind and healthy kind only) amigurumi-style in the pot.

Definitely not necessary these three pre-assembling ones shown in photo above. I have many other colour combos up my yarn sleeve (purple, violet, turquoise, yellow, blue, red, other green and pink hues...).

What I can say is that it'll be a psychedelic mushroom in three colours, the winners will be able to chose if they want their own mushroom as is or as a keychain-mascot and quite possibly, if I'm in a good mood, mention their favourite perky colour and I'll take that in consideration when I create the mushroom.

This is what the little mushrooms will look like finished - the original one

Leave a comment here in this very giveaway-post and tell how you find your way to this blog and what has kept you returning. Last day of entry will be next Sunday April 17, midnight CET. Everyone who has left such a comment will be a part of the drawing. Needless to say there will be eager little bobbaloos helping with the drawing. Winners will then be announced before Easter and, if all goes well, the perky psychedelic mushrooms will be sent to their new homes the following week.

the beauty of a furry flabby tummy

Every little part of a cat is a thing of exquisite beauty and one of my favourite parts is that little potbelly some of them have. In Swedish some call them "tigermage"/"tiger belly" and it's supposedly the cat's equivalent of a camel's hump, reserve stock for a non-rainy day. I have had otherwise slender cats with this flabby part as well as more chubby ones, so it really has nothing to do with corpulence. Some have  it, others don't.

It's such an endearing, cuddly little part I think. When it comes to cats. I can't see myself being as completely charmed by a human potbelly anytime soon. When it comes to humans I will only be charmed by personality, not the having or not having of a flabby tummy.

My favourite flabby tummy belongs to one very, very special dotty one. Inspector of many things. Like the bobbaloos, she always makes me go "awww" on the dreariest of days and times.

Do you have a favourite furry flabby tummy of your own?

innocent drinks and such

With my recent unfortunate teeth troubles I have been gulping down quite a lot of fruit smoothies and of course especially my favourite brand Innocent. When I once upon a time discovered that my local supermarket sold Innocent cartons with my two favourite flavours, mango and passionfruit, and strawberry bananas, I was very happy indeed.

Sadly they have recently discontinued offering them though. The same goes for the great Swedish brand Brämhults, who also offers great freshly squeezed fruit juices and rather nice smoothies. (And the Brämhults communication dept is really friendly on Twitter too.)

Instead they only seem to sell Chiquita fruit drinks, which for many reasons is not something I like. At all. Yes, one could definitely use one's consumer power and complain about this, but until I do, I shop for Innocent elsewhere.

So needless to say I was borderline ecstatic when I discovered that the nearby where-I-spend-my-weekdays-these-days supermarket (the supermarkets of supermarkets, one could easily get lost in there) sold several Innocent flavours, that I could have for lunch.

The first new-for-me-flavour I tried was the apple, kiwi, lime one. A lovely colour, but a flavour that didn't appeal to me at all, too harsh and sourish for my taste-buds. I blame the lime (which is about all lime is good for, blame). I spotted a blueberry, pomegranate, acai tucked in the fridge too, I'll try that next time instead.

Ever since I first spotted Innocent beverages (years ago, on one of those great UK-holidays) I've been quite smitten by not only their wonderful products, but their style and writing, humour, company ethics and overall attitude. Seems like a great place to work. At least the UK headquarters. The Swedish affiliate doesn't seem too interested in acknowledging/interacting with people expressing interest in working with them (should the opportunity rise)... Just sayin'.

But, the smoothies in general still rock, big time.

properly introducing leonard and sissi, buddernut and plumlord

Time has come to properly introduce the two plus two still not really introduced bobbaloos - yes I'm well aware of them  having sort of taken over this blog, and I'm more than happy to let them do so, since my creative juices badly need re-charging as far as other matters are concerned, so bobbaloo here, bobbaloo there, bobbaloo most everywhere. They may be tiny small, they may sleep a lot, but they do know how to demand attention when awake or bored...  

Since Kismet and Jojo got such a long post of their own, it's not more than fair that these four guys got at least the same kind of introductory post. Even if there have been previous photo glimpses, magical sleeping pouches and such, they all have their little life-stories. As here follows;

On March 23 Leonard and Sissi arrived - they obviously must have arrived jetplane-style since it only took 4,5 days to get from Minnesota to Sweden - Leonard is the little brother who is born before his big sister Sissi (that can happen in the bobbaloo-world). His creator Kit told about the misfortune where he lost part of his ears "when he was mistaken for a chunk of grass by Lars the goat, who  took a huge chomp off of what was some glorious Jacabunny ears. Leonard, after a few days in bed seemed himself albeit a bit shorter, but poor Lars the goat I fear will never recover."

Leonard likes "gardening (finally there's someone with green fingers living under this roof!), craves watercress and rutabaga salad, and adores bathing in the warm glow of a computer monitor". I'm so happy I snatched him in an open adoption, but it wouldn't be right for him to having travel all by his little self so I asked if there could possible be some little pink girl with a bunnykins who would like to travel with him.

And soon appeared Sissi, she isn't such a tiny li'l thing but she does have all the right features to fit in with the rest - "she enjoys a quiet evening, the warm blue glow of a computer monitor, a steamy hot cup of tea with short bread cookies (my kind of gal!), a bed time tuck-in with bunnykins and squidgee squeezles".

They soon had their first debate club with Kismet and Jojo. And they climbed the blueberry sprigs, doing a bit of pre-spring garden inspecting. As well as appeared on shoe per diem.

They have hung high in their magical sleeping pouches, 

as well as being safely tucked in.

And suddenly they were six, just a week later, March 30 (also by jetplane) arrived Buddernut and Plumlord. Three is a magic number, six is twice the magic. They were completely fearless, heading for the tulip bouquet immediately, not the least bit scared of the big redhead with fangs lurking in the background.

As it did turn out, Plumlord had a rather prominent tummy and the magical sleeping pouch ready and waiting didn't quite fit his rotund body shape. That has since been fixed. 

Buddernut (also known as Bud) is a stylish Jacabunny fella in a blue scarf (and oh do we love scarves in this house!) who also is fond of lounging in the soft glow of a computer monitor after a long day in the garden, craves tea and crumpets, and adores squeezles.

While his sturdy purple companion Jacabob Plumlord agrees with the greatness of computer glow warmth, tea and squeezles, he is more of a romp in snowy garden followed by full English breakfast fella (as told by Kit).

The six of them get along famously. They have their debate club, chitter-chatter all through the nights, they enjoy apple buns, like to climb green things and flowers, to explore garden, they invoke spring as much as they can, like red, fast things and they don't appreciate love poems on toilet tissue.

Come summer there will be exciting travel adventures in Europe for a selected couple of these bobbaloos, their own Bobbaloo's Travel Cabin is already waiting.

posterior love poems

Apparently I'm not the only one embarrassed by the utterly silly (that words really can't describe) idea of the latest Swedish toilet tissue campaign, by Lambi. As if the once upon a time limited edition wasn't enough, now there's toilet paper with (bad) love poetry printed on it. Or "20 metres of inspiring poems" as the company calls it.

I don't know which disturbs me most, the fact that some people actually get paid for coming up with stupid ideas like this,

that some other people think they are great ideas and launch a whole campaign based on,

that there are people writing poems to be put on toilet tissue. Admittedly to wipe one's behind with love is a bad, bad idea in my world. In this case one even wipes it the trilingual (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish) way.

As usual, me and my posterior are finicky users in need of softness. But we would much, much rather have that softness in simple style and certainly not abusing love while using it.

As is obvious, Buddernut and Plumlord are also quite troubled by this

"Night falls
 I fall
Capture me
Confine me
And at dawn
Release me again"

"Can't breath
Suddenly

Can't think
In love
With you"

afternoon tea at schenströmska herrgården

Last weekend we went on a little outing, to one of my favourite parts of Sweden - due to it's often lush, pretty appearance of a quite not graspable eerie magic - Bergslagen. Not the best part of the year to experience that green lushness and charming environment, but still a nice outing it was.

Destination: afternoon tea at Schenströmska Herrgården (mansion) in Ramnäs. The afternoon tea experience at this hotel and conference facilities had apparently been praised in Sweden's largest newspaper DN (Dagens Nyheter, Daily News) earlier and M thought it would be a nice treat.

 

And yes, it did look promising when we first arrived. Very much so, the open fire, tea buffet on a drop-leaf table. The very stately outside had a surprisingly unpretentious, austere inside. But what looked like rather mouthwatering food on display turned out to be rather disappointing. Looks ain't everything...

At closer inspection I got the impression that it was a mix of leftovers from previous day's dinner/snacks (pizza slices and bluecheese is out of place at afternoon tea) and not very well composed ingredients.

The buffet lacked displays (when it isn't obvious, I really appreciate the guest courtesy to tell me what is suitable for vegetarians and what is not).

No cucumber sandwiches and such.

The standard of the scones was really appalling, a large bread from which you broke your own piece, dry and very far from proper scones consistency.

The cakes, muffins and cookies were all too sugary.

There were only two jams, neither raspberry nor strawberry. The red jam was cherry and it was really more like soup than jam (and so runny that no matter how careful you were you still ended up with stained clothes).

It wasn't very convenient to have the table with tea in another room.

So, my overall impression of this afternoon tea experience at Schenströmska Herrgården does not agree with that of DN (and I'm not surprised, we rarely do agree on things);

Food - 2/5
Service - 2/5
Ambiance - 3/5 
Value for money - 2/5

That said, it was still a nice outing. And we plan to return come summer, because I'm sure the nearby lake with streams and woods offer lovely nature walks during the lush, green time of the year. We also spotted a nearby café that looked nice, somehow I think it would offer more value for money tea-and-cake-wise.

monday short musing

Today has just been a crazy busy writing day, writing of not so pleasant things as blog matters, and I do believe I'm all written out - and I'm still not finished for the "day"...

I did have a crocheting-of-granny-squares-for-magical-sleeping-pouches-and-eating-a-surprise-semla-midday-break (which was pretty awesome), but other than that, not much inspiration for anything blogworthy. Some days sadly are like that. But tomorrow, oh tomorrow there will be tale told and photos shown of afternoon tea in a charming milieu. But for now, on this tired Monday just this short musing.

And, for some odd reason, surprise, a Kismet bobbaloo ~

hurry up and spring come shout the bobbaloos

Looking out the window at one of the most depressing garden sights ever - one might call it ugly-spring - it's difficult to comprehend that this garden in a month or two will be (oh yes it will, it really will, it really have to...) a non-marshy, green, lush, turd-alert free zone (one small loaf-dog and a very long, rich in snow winter can achieve great things together...).

Oh yes, we are all very, very eager to welcome spring for real, for sure, humans, cats, dog and bobbaloos!

The latters little facial expressions and unique postures really make me most happy and giggly - which you might have gathered by their recent very commonly occurrence here in blog - and into the garden, where no cat will venture at the moment (too weather/dirt finicky for that), the bobbaloos bravely go.

Kismet and Jojo, Sissi and Leonard, they have now been joined by Buddernut and Plumlord. Bud being a style-conscious fella with a snazzy scarf, Plum sporting a rather rotund shape (which made the magical sleeping pouch waiting for him too small for comfortable fit) but being a surprisingly agile and eager climber of things.

They have been up to all sorts of interesting things already, but as I'm more than a tad pressed for time finishing things for the week to come, this will be a shortish-bobbaloo-post for this day.

So Happy Sunday, happy first week of April,
I hope there will be many occasions for laughters and smiles ~

all the bobbaloos are made by Kit Lane on Etsy

apple buns

Here follows the recipe for the apple buns that were thoroughly inspected my Kismet and Jojo some weeks ago. They are rather nice to eat and reasonably simple to make.

Apple buns
makes 20

25 g fresh yeast

50 g butter (I always use the liquid butter/oil blend)

2,5 dl milk
0,5 dl caster sugar
2 tsp cardamom
a pinch of salt
~6-7 dl spelt flour

Filling:

4 apples
~1,5 tsp vanilla sugar
(cinnamon)
1 egg to brush
pearl sugar
sunflower seeds or chopped almonds/nuts

:: Crumble yeast in the mixer bowl. Melt butter, add milk and heat until lukewarm. Add liquid to the crumbled yeas and stir until dissolved. Then add sugar, cardamom, salt and finally the spelt flour little by little until there's a soft, yet firm that doesn't stick to bowl. Cover and let rise for about 30 minutes.

:: In the meantime peel apples and coarsely grate them. Add the vanilla sugar (taste the filling, it shouldn't be overly sweet) and possibly cinnamon. Mix well.

:: To have a muffin sheet for this is really very convenient, I found that baking the buns in baking tins alone didn't work well. I lined the muffin sheet with baking tins, but it may not be necessary.

:: Roll out the dough to a large rectangle. Slice it in 20 squares. Put a dollop of the apple mix on each square and then pinch the edges together. Put buns with seams down in the tins/muffin sheet or on just on a sheet covered with baking paper. Cover and let rise for about 25 minutes.

:: Put oven on 225 C. When buns have risen brush them with a beaten egg and sprinkle with pearl sugar and sunflower seed or chopped almonds/nuts. Bake in oven for 7-10 minutes until buns are golden.

They freeze reasonably well, but are really best eaten warm from oven and consumed within a couple of days. I think I can safely say they will be enjoyed by humans and bobbaloos alike.

no april fool

It's been a bewildered week, with lots of crazy things happening, both incredible low-water marks (of which I've mentioned a few) and some really peculiar things that may or may not be April Fool-ish. That remains to be seen.

Be as that may, it's now April. Finally. Spring for sure, though today's weather was a very unfortunate joke. I now hope for a lovely month of April, there's promise of good, dreamy and magical things in the air, with fab socks and great shoes to still keep feet firmly and comfortable walking on ground.

Happy weekend, happy April!